


Sunrise Serenade

by thepillowverse



Series: The Pillow Verse [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bunker Fic, Curtain Fic, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:24:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepillowverse/pseuds/thepillowverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humanity continues to be both confusing but delightful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrise Serenade

**Author's Note:**

> **Chapter Eight:** Sunrise Serenade [[ The Pillow ‘Verse](http://thepillowverse.tumblr.com/masterpost)]  
>  **Author:** Dirtyovercoats  
>  **Pairings/Characters:** Dean/Castiel, Sam  
>  **Rating:** R  
>  **Warnings:** mild to more explicit sexuality  
>  **Count:** ~3,600  
>  **Artist:** Guusana

Castiel wakes up the next morning, his mouth pressed against Dean’s shoulder, drooling. Blinking away the last vestiges of sleep, and some ever more distant dream of a warm world painted in brown and green, Cas peels himself away from Dean’s still slumbering body to lay on his back and stare at the ceiling.

He’d feel embarrassment at the drool if another, more insistent morning horror, were not also making itself known a little lower down his body. He’s experienced erections before, obviously, even while still fully an angel, but tied to this body in a more resolute and permanent way, his body’s response to certain kinds of stimulation has gotten noticeably more sensitive. He’s not normally inclined to do much about them, finding the idea of the effort required to deal with the issue the normal way a nuisance at best, daunting at worst. There have been times, at least, when his dreams started skewing away from nightmares of fire storms and drowning in the water needed to douse him, to hazy images of soft flesh and willing smiles, and his body took care of its arousal in his sleep. He wakes in the remnants of it, but then he doesn’t have to think about it any longer beyond cleaning up before Dean too awakens. But sometimes he wakes and the unsettled, unfinished feeling still persistently pulses through him, not to be ignored.

Castiel sighs, and rises from the bed. Should he step into the shower, attempt to see this through before going on his daily run? Or belligerently refuse to acknowledge the feeling until it goes away? Both have compelling arguments and objections in equal measure.

Beside him, Dean shifts in his sleep, stirring Castiel momentarily from his thoughts. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Castiel spares a glance at him from behind his back, finding solace in the lax and open softness of Dean’s features when he’s like this, curled up in his own space— _comfortable_. Castiel shifts in his own discomfort again, scowling down at his still excited cock. Dean would certainly not just will this away, would he? A sensual and seductive soul when he wants to be, Dean would probably go into the shower, or indeed stay right here if he had no other audience, and simply let his natural instincts carry him.

Thinking about Dean and sex isn’t making his problem go away any faster. Perhaps a shower _is_ the best idea right now. Maybe a cold one.

He steps into the shower room and the tile is cool against the bottoms of his bare feet. He understands why Dean likes this room in particular—it’s large, clean, but not uninviting. When constantly in use by four sweaty bodies, there’s a sense of humidity about it that makes the air feel thick but not obstructive, warm and present against his skin. He strips before stepping into the shower stall, curling the elastic waistband of his boxers over his ever-insistent arousal with a snap.

He stands out of the direction of the spray when he first steps in, not enjoying the idea of being blasted with absolutely frigid or boiling water before he can adjust to the temperature of the flow. He’s made that mistake already.

Crowded close to the knobs, he sticks a hand out into the falling water, testing it. When the warmth is hot enough but not scalding, Castiel closes his eyes and moves under. His cock bobs awkwardly as he moves, and he wills himself to be patient.

Once his muscles ease out under the temperature, Castiel moves a hand down to grip his resilient erection. He knows, clinically, how this is done. He’s observed many humans over the centuries in a myriad of different sexual positions, with any number of sexual partners. He’s even seen Dean, generous and beautiful, gasp when he’s hit his release. This was all well before he _knew_ Dean, of course, in the profound sense, in the flesh and borrowed blood of Jimmy Novak’s body sense, but still. Though the memory was from long ago, from _lives_ ago, he remembers how Dean _moved_.

He gasps himself as a shock of new arousal jolts through him, makes his cock come more alive and sensitive beneath his hand. A picture of Dean’s open mouth flashes in his mind, and imagining the heat of it against Castiel’s skin, the excited feeling seers through his arms and legs. As he fondles his ball sack with one hand, and gripping the base of his shaft and moving upwards with the other, he imagines Dean beneath him, over him, _everywhere_ , because the smell of him will not leave his pores, it sings out through all his senses.

Dean is a taste in his mouth as much as a sight in his mind, a shelter from the storm, but also a storm in and of himself of a different kind. Castiel would give up dryness forever just to stand in it.

Castiel comes with a grunting kind of sigh, the wind punched out of him. His nerves feel both frayed and rejuvenated, all electrified, but also somewhat exhausted by the same measure.

The sticky, whitish fluid washes off quickly under the spray of the shower, and with the evidence of his release gone he doesn’t quite know how he feels. He wonders, briefly, before he clears his mind and moves for the shampoo, if this all would have felt _fuller_ if experienced with Dean.

“I hope things are better for you than they were yesterday,” Castiel says hours later, when Dean is awake and dressed, and Castiel is freshly returned from his run. They sit at the kitchen table, both nursing cups of coffee.

He states the proposition more than asks it, but in such a way that he leaves it open for Dean to either answer or evade. He hopes Dean will choose the former, for the _not knowing_ leaves such a sour feeling in his stomach, that is only growing by the hour. He knows the dangers well, of keeping concerns bottled up, suppressed until they rot into something volatile. He’s never going to be rid of folly, but some mistakes he’s made enough by now to know that they _can_ be avoided.

Dean’s shoulders look like they tense in defensive readiness. Perhaps the morning wasn’t the best time to broach this again, but he fears Dean remains too worried from their brief conversation about Castiel’s future with them, with _him_ , from last night, that he doesn’t want to keep the concern waiting. “It’s fine, Cas, things are good–” he begins to wave off.

“If you are uneasy with the pace of our…” Castiel searches for the right words. In many ways this evolution in their relationship feels like a natural progression of all that they had been before, but it also feels _new_ and _unprecedented_. Castiel truly _is_ fallen in every way imaginable.

“–our _intimacy_ , I’m sorry if I’ve done something wrong in saying I don’t _know_ where I am headed. This is all very…”

“New?” Dean supplies with a tone of sympathy.

“Well, yes,” Castiel nods. “But I was going to say _unexpected_.” It would be a ridiculous understatement to say his final fall was fully anticipated, but also even just the unyielding offer of the Winchesters’ welcoming has been unexpected, too. After all that he’s done, he scarcely believes he deserves their kindness, but he’s learning every day how much they _want_ to give it and how much he wants to _accept_ it.

Knowing Dean has been such a strange lesson in want and need both, but after everything, he can’t say he regrets it. Everything Dean’s done for him, everything he’s done _to_ him, from making his heart clench in anguish to it stutter in shocked delight, is something of a horrible, happy wonder.

Of course, out loud, he spares the speech. He looks at Dean until his friend holds his gaze. “In all my thousands of years of human study, I still could not anticipate _you_.”

Dean swallows hard, casting his gaze back down to where his hands curl around his coffee mug. Castiel continues to watch him steadily as Dean takes a deep breath. “It’s not something you’ve done, I know you can’t tell the future,” he says, and then shakes his head in frustration. “Maybe it’s something _I’ve_ done, I don’t know. Just—does this feel too fast for you?”

He looks genuinely worried that he might scare Castiel off, which is a baffling realisation, for Castiel has no idea where else he would _go_. As he’s said, there’s nowhere else he’d _want_ to go. _But does_ Dean _think it’s moving too fast?_ he suddenly wonders.

Castiel tenses, a chill running through him, and dampening out any residual warmth he’d felt from his earlier indulgence in the shower. He frowns, concerned. “So I _have_ misstepped.”

“No!” Dean exclaims, quick to counter Castiel’s disappointment. “No, I love having you around to make out with you, man,” he jokes lightly, and then laughs, but it’s a self-deprecating sound. “I don’t know, maybe there’s a reason I’m not used to all this,” he gestures vaguely between them. It’s left unsaid, but they both know that by _'this'_ Dean means _everything_ —comfort, consolation, _happiness_.

Castiel smiles a bit ruefully, and repeats some old words from long ago. “Good things do happen, Dean.”

Dean laughs again, slightly more hollowly this time, but a small smile still plays on his face. “So you’ve said.”

Castiel takes the opportunity of the ensuing silence while Dean gathers his thoughts to take a final gulp of his coffee, the now lukewarm liquid still a welcome flavour on his tongue. Across from him, Dean licks his lips before he begins again.

“I can’t tell what the _distraction_ is anymore. Is this, I don’t know, playing some weird version of secret bunker house the distraction, or is hunting?” Despite Castiel’s complicity, he supposes, in this confusion, Dean’s eyes are not accusing when he looks back up at him, simply trying to convey the depths of his conflict.

But also despite his familiarity with the confusion Dean is feeling, Castiel has to believe the outing with Charlie was good for _both_ of them, and at the very least showed Castiel that action and purpose need not only exist in sacrifice. It seems like such a simple lesson, but ages of instinct are hard to eschew. “It doesn’t have to be only one or the other,” he says, voice quiet, contemplative. This is advice he needs to absorb more for himself, he thinks wryly. “You can want both things, activity and respite, one is not diminished by wanting the other.”

He pauses, searching Dean’s gaze for acceptance before he continues. “But if _we_ do decide to leave this place, travel, that does not mean I will run away.” Castiel knows his history with flight has not been kind to Dean’s peace of mind, but he doesn’t feel like anything is chasing him. Guilt lingers, at the back of his mind, in shadow, but if his responsibility is to making things better, he can at least start with this. With them. “My desire to stay with you as long as you’ll have me is not qualified by anything.”

It seems to be the right thing to say, and Dean smiles. “This _is_ good though, isn’t it?” and Castiel knows he means the _newness_ brimming between them, between each kiss _._

Castiel thinks again to his shower fantasies. “You are very excellent in many regards Dean, but in sensual matters your expertise exceeds any justice I could do in describing it.”

Dean full-out _laughs_ , and reaches a hand halfway across the table as if to reach for Castiel’s own, before he jilts it back again. Castiel smiles at him curiously, touched by the gesture even though Dean was too shy to follow through.

“You’re such a stilted sweet talker,” Dean jokes, waving his awkwardness off. “You could always just say I’m a handsome devil instead.”

“I enjoy being elaborate on occasion.”

“I thought angels were all about efficiency,” Dean drawls, but then catches himself. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he begins to apologise, but Castiel shakes his head.

Efforts towards ever increased efficiency in his various quests over the years has proved to be both an advantage and a curse for him, it seems. He reaches his own hand across the worn wooden counter top to complete the reach Dean had aborted. He grips it tight. “Perhaps I ought to practice living without that, too.”

It’s a promise to himself.

The day continues on with a renewed determination to find a proper hunt to satisfy some feelings of being directionless, but being out of the game for weeks on end now, really, and Charlie’s debacle excluded, the pace of finding proper leads is mournfully slow. They do have two laptops now with Kevin’s addition, but Dean explains that he feels uncomfortable about forcing Kevin into the game with them; he’ll steal Sam’s laptop instead. Which of course proves difficult, for Sam has decided to take the day to archive some of the _bunker’s_ archives for easy, portable access on his own hard drive, and demands he have access to his own things for at least _some_ of the afternoon.

“At least with Cas here I don’t have to worry about you stealing it to watch porn, when you have the real thing,” he grins, teasing. “But no, I need it for a bit,” he explains over Dean’s blush.

Which leaves Dean and Castiel both with some time to kill, yet again. They elect to spend it in the library. In lieu of having the internet to browse for strange phenomena around the county and country, they collect all the local papers they can, and spread them out across the dark, stained wood of the library’s study table. It’s a dreary chore in some ways, reading through mundane article after mundane article of small town gossip and events, but Castiel quickly falls into a comfortable rhythm in his reading.

“This is the downside of hunting they don’t tell you about in school,” Dean sighs in exhaustion as he folds away another useless newspaper.

“I don’t think your education system—” Castiel begins to object, because as far as he knows hunting is still neither a widely accepted nor known about profession. He could be wrong, though, as absurd as the prospect is.

Dean laughs. “ _Joking,_ Cas. Oh man, if _only_ paperwork was the worst of our problems, though,” he appends, and picks up the next paper. Whipping the newsprint pages open with a crackling sound, Dean then peers at Cas over the top of it. “Hey, what do you say you put a few tunes on for us? The stereo in the corner has a whole stack of albums,” he says, gesturing with his head.

Castiel looks over his shoulder to the brown, wooden stereo set, record player already pulled out from it, having recently been used. Dean is fond of putting music on while he does chores, and Castiel has found that he enjoys Dean’s tastes. Though more amusing is perhaps Sam’s teasing about it, even as he taps his foot in time, too.

His chair scratches against the floor as he slides out of it, and walks over to the player. There is maybe a stack of a dozen or so albums beside it—all ones Dean’s pulled out from storage, he imagines, or something he had picked up along his travels. But it does seem to be a diverse collection. Some names he recognises, from Dean’s car tapes, but some he doesn’t. He assumes those unknown artists belong to the bunker, perhaps picked out at random when Dean was rifling around the shelves, though perhaps they are Sam’s or Kevin’s choice, too.

Castiel chooses the most interesting sounding title and fits it on the player.

The speakers crackle to life with the sudden burst of sound. The needle, perched on the out rim of the spinning record, rests lightly on the grooves as it pierces through to the soul beneath them. The tune is both melancholic and uplifting at once, and it’s such a curious combination that Castiel wonders, as he walks back to his seat, why he had not ever heard this album before.

There is much human composition that is familiar to him, but he supposes there is just _too_ much of it for an indifferent observer to keep track. But he’s not indifferent, he’s not unfeeling, and this music clearly _feels_ with every note. It’s hard to discern, though, exactly what the sentiment is. Maybe that’s some sort of statement as to the mysterious essence of the human experience, Castiel muses.

A few tracks into the album, Dean raises a brow and the side of his mouth quirks up. “Figures you’d be into jazz,” he comments, breaking Castiel from his thoughts.

“It’s…” Castiel trails off, frowning back at the turntable. “I can’t tell if I _like_ it, but I do enjoy listening to it.”

“Uh, I think that means you like it, man.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “It’s—it’s _difficult_. I don’t know how I feel about it,” he tilts his head. “But I enjoy the idea of finding out.”

“Yeah? It’s not very danceable though,” Dean notes, sounding a bit disappointed.

A doubtful look must show on Castiel’s face, for Dean’s own expression colours in objection. “Hey, I can dance!”

Castiel hums in placation, but it is apparently not enough for Dean. “Okay, get up. I will fucking _show_ you,” he says, jumping out of his seat and walking over to the player.

He picks the needle up off the record player, stopping its spinning and setting it down to rest on the stand before he re-sheaths Castiel’s randomly chosen record. He fumbles around with the records beside the player for a moment before shifting albums aside to get at one record. “Aw, yeah, this is it,” he says more to himself than anyone, dipping the record sleeve to slide the black disc out.

He sets the needle down and the sound sparkles to life again, this time a smoother melody, all classy brass and pomp. It’s nice, and it’s certainly upbeat, but what Castiel loves about it the most is how Dean’s face lights up to it, how his body relaxes, ready to move in any direction the music takes him.

“I didn’t think you liked this kind of music,” Castiel muses.

“Well, this ain’t no driving music, that’s for sure,” Dean chuckles, walking back towards him. “But no, I like a little swing. I dated a girl once—well, _‘dated,’_ no, it wasn’t that serious or anything, we had fun—but she made me come to this club with her once. Here I was expecting to suffer through some over-priced drinks and grinding douche-bags for awhile, but it turned out to be a swing club. She was really into that scene, I guess.”

“Were you?” Castiel is genuinely curious, by the warm inflection in his voice, Dean clearly likes the idea of dancing.

“Ha, no. God, can you imagine?” he rubs the back of his neck. “No, we left town two days later. I have great muscle memory though. Plus, ever need to scope out some swanky event on a hunt, dancing can do you good to get a feel of the room,” he grins down at Castiel in his chair, expectant. When Castiel doesn’t move, he holds out a hand—an offer to lead.

“ _Fine_ ,” Castiel mock sighs in exasperation, and finally gets up again, abandoning their search for the supernatural for a little while longer.

When standing in front of him, Dean reels him in by their joined hands, their faces only inches apart, if that, their bodies aligned. Castiel is very sure Dean has a point with dancing being useful training of a sort, and probably even further correct in dancing being simply _fun_ , but all he wants to do right now with Dean so close is to kiss him. So he does.

It takes Dean by surprise, which is a special kind of thrill that Castiel chases into the kiss, and Dean searches out to grip Castiel by the hips for balance. Dean’s chest against his own is a hot, enveloping presence, but it’s not oppressive. Instead, the constancy is a reminder of all the things just thinking about Dean’s body does to him nowadays. It haunts him in sleep and tantalises him in waking, always just there, always out of reach. But not anymore. Not with Dean’s mouth so giving, not with his hands so steady at his sides.

Castiel _wants_. He wants to keep this for however long he can have Dean, and it’s an exciting idea to think, too, that he wants _more_. He wants Dean in body and soul, and he’s already known all of the latter.

“I can’t tell if this is one of the most disastrous dancing lessons I’ve ever had, or the hottest,” Dean whispers, amusement lacing in his breathless voice when he breaks away. It’s true: though the music plays on behind them, they haven’t yet got to actually _dancing_.

Castiel’s own voice is hoarse and hitched when he dryly replies, “Choose wisely, for only one of those conclusions is any kind of compliment.”

Dean pauses as if to think for a moment. “Nah,” he concludes, moving a hand up Castiel’s neck to rub circles with his thumb at a particularly sensitive spot behind Castiel’s ear, discovered some days ago, “who cares if it _is_ a disaster, it’s _definitely_ hot.”

Castiel answers his agreement with another kiss.


End file.
